Bananas and cereal at a grocery store in Fairfax, Virginia, on March 3, 2011. (USDA photo by Lance Cheung.)
A coalition of Democratic state officials sued the Trump administration on Tuesday, asking a federal judge to force the release of food aid money to 42 million people that the U.S. Department of Agriculture says cannot be paid out during the ongoing government shutdown.
Attorneys general representing 22 states and the District of Columbia and three governors were fired the suit Days before benefits for low-income Americans participating in the USDA’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) are expected to be eliminated on November 1st.
Although the USDA holds $6 billion in a reserve fund said last week Without the fiscal year 2026 funding approved by Congress, it would not process November’s SNAP benefits.
The USDA’s refusal to provide benefits in November flies in the face of precedent from other recent shutdowns and even the department’s Sept. 30 contingency plan, which stated that the emergency fund would be used to maintain benefits during the shutdown.
The administration has also reallocated other funds to fund certain programs, but not SNAP.
The Democratic officials said those factors made the decision arbitrary and capricious, in violation of federal administrative law, and asked a federal court in Massachusetts to declare the USDA’s move unlawful and block the government from implementing it.
“It is an abuse of discretion for Defendants to refuse to use available funds, including the SNAP Emergency Reserve, to fund benefits for the mandatory SNAP eligibility program,” they wrote.
SNAP benefits typically cost the federal government about $9 billion per month, meaning the emergency fund could cover about two-thirds of November benefits.
The department could cover an entire month by tapping into another USDA food assistance program that includes about $23 billion, state officials said. Part of this fund was used to cover a shortfall in the special nutritional supplement program for women, infants and children earlier this month.
The attorneys general of Massachusetts, California, Arizona, Minnesota, (*28*), Colorado, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington state and Wisconsin filed the lawsuit along with the Democratic governors. Laura Kelly of Kansas, Andy Beshear of Kentucky and Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania.
Turn off politics
In an emailed statement, a USDA spokesperson did not address the lawsuit filed by state officials and instead blamed the shutdown on Democrats in the U.S. Senate.
“We are approaching a tipping point for Senate Democrats,” the speaker wrote. “Continue to stand with the far-left wing of the party or restore the government so that mothers, babies and the most vulnerable among us can receive timely WIC and SNAP benefits.”
SNAP, which is funded by the federal government and administered by states, is one of the high-profile programs hit by the government shutdown that began Oct. 1 when Congress failed to appropriate funding for the fiscal year that began on that date.
Republicans in Congress have tried to pass a stopgap measure to reopen the government, but Democrats have successfully blocked that bill as they call on Congress to address the phase-out of health premiums for coverage through the Affordable Care Act marketplace.
In a letter from Tuesday afternoon, 19 Republican attorneys general called on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to support the Republican stopgap measure to prevent a cutoff in SNAP benefits.
The letter, written by Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, called SNAP “one of the simplest and most effective ways to prevent hunger in America.”
“You have the power to prevent an entirely avoidable crisis,” the letter said. “A clear solution is not a political concession; it is the responsible choice to do so. … Refusing to do so now is not leadership; it is leverage at the expense of the most vulnerable.”
In addition to Yost, the letter was signed by the attorneys general of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia and West Virginia.
Benefits are already being delayed in some states
Due to the processing times required to deposit money into SNAP recipients’ Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards, November benefits may already be delayed in some states.
The lawsuit states that the California EBT Provider, the private company hired to load monthly benefits onto individuals’ EBT cards, takes about a week to process these transfers.
“To ensure that recipients receive their November 2025 benefits on a timely basis, California should have sent its issuance materials to its provider by October 23, 2025,” the lawsuit says. “Each day after October 23 that California does not send its issuance materials to its provider will result in benefits being delayed an additional day in November.”
Additionally, because most states operate one of two EBT providers, there is a high likelihood that providers will be overwhelmed by the workload of “all of their customer states essentially simultaneously” once the benefit freeze is lifted, state officials said.
Even if the USDA released the funds immediately, there would be a delay before they appeared on the EBT maps, they said.
